


So Someone Can Love Me

by takemetofantasyland



Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:33:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28449225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takemetofantasyland/pseuds/takemetofantasyland
Summary: Ten years after the accident, Anya finds herself growing into her new life. From Perm to Paris, her intuition and self realization grows stronger, but is challenged by her heart and longing to belong to someone.Alternately, four times Anya was independent, and the one time she chose not to be.(Canonverse)
Relationships: Dimitri | Dmitry/Anya | Anastasia Romanov (Anastasia 1997 & Broadway)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	So Someone Can Love Me

**Author's Note:**

> A deep dive on Anya this time. Some creative liberties were taken to fill in some of the gaps, especially in some of the pre-canon timeline. It’s all for the story, enjoy! :)

**[Perm, 1917]**

In her candle-lit hospital room, Anya stood on her toes to look in the dim reflection of the vanity mirror. Her fingers traced over a scar in her hairline as she examined her reflection. The nurses had said she had hit her head leaving her with a case of amnesia, but her head tilted to one side with curiosity as she looked at where stitches had been placed to aid in healing her head injury. 

Her fingers pushed her hair back so she could take a closer look at her forehead. There was a scar she had no memory of glaring back at her. That had to have been related to the injury. Like the uncertainty in her scar, she wasn’t actually sure of much of anything in the room. She wasn’t even sure about being called Anya.

The nurses had given her the name in the wake of her memory loss, and now months into her recovery it had stuck. Her name felt like a coat you found in an attic—something that vaguely belonged to someone and didn’t quite fit right, but was sentimental for a reason you couldn’t quite place a finger on. 

In all the unfamiliarity in her situation, her name had surprisingly grown the most familiar. 

Despite her small efforts in trying to make her room in the hospital feel like a place she could call home, it never quite did. She was told trying to make familiarity out of the unfamiliar was normal for her case of amnesia. The nurses who were kind made her feel at home, but the room still felt cold and sterile. 

She had no personal belongings in her room except for a pair of worn boots. Anya supposed this was fair, given that she had come into the hospital with only the clothes on her back, but her heart ached for something she could call her own. 

The boots were a looming fixture of her odd in-between life. The leather finish was peeling, and the rubber soles wore thin from walking through snow. If she closed her eyes and concentrated, she had a vague memory of trading her delicate shoes for the more practical pair of boots, which had turned out to be too large for her. Her head was starting to ache and she ran her fingers through her hair with a sigh. 

Anya glanced back at her own reflection in the mirror. She let her hair fall back into place and fixed the sleeve of the nightdress the nurses had gifted to her during her prolonged stay. She held out her arms to look at how the nightdress hung on her thin frame. It made her look ghostly more than anything and still felt less than her own. 

Desperately, she tried to make familiarity out of things she herself did not recognize. She was rebuilding a life from memories she did not have. At times, even looking at her own reflection was haunting. 

Anya parted sections of her hair to look at her injury. Her brow knit as she leaned closer and closer to the mirror to examine it. The pain was beginning to dull and any faint memory she had of the accident was beginning to fade, but something didn’t quite add up in the timeline. The scarring was mostly concealed by her thick hair, but she didn’t understand how she had a scar across her forehead when she had slipped and fallen backwards on the ice—at least that’s what the nurses had told her. 

Some nights she had heard the whispers outside her room like she had some rare medical condition. Surely many patients had taken a fall and hit their heads? In the winter, slipping on ice had to be merely commonplace.

It still didn’t explain her terrors in the middle of the night. Sometimes she woke in the middle of the night and her chest was heavy and her throat was tight—as if she was being suffocated by her own nightmare. The same figures would appear in her dreams and she Couldn’t escape. Her lungs would sting as she gasped for air. It plagued her mind as she tried to make out the ghostly faces that appeared each night. 

Anya was often restless spending day in and day out alone in her room. The nurses told her she needed to stay in bed, and not to be on her feet for extended periods of time. Anya suspected this was only because they did not want her wandering the halls of the hospital at least when she was in the most crucial part of her recovery. 

She stood inches away from the mirror, dividing her hair and gently playing with it. She tried to pull it back, but released it and shook her head. Her hair was shorter now than it used to be. The nurses had cut her hair when she came into the hospital under the guise that it made caring for her head injury easier. 

Anya understood, but she missed the way her hair felt when it fell down her shoulders and back. She had enough hair to braid and pull back, and now it hung limply to her shoulders. 

Her lip turned into a smirk. Of course. Her hair felt about as much a part of her as everything else in this room. She knew it was a silly detail to get caught up on. It was cut for a practical reason, and it was just hair. It would grow long again, but with everything, it took patience. 

Anya heard footsteps coming down the hall and gasped and ran back to her bed. She quickly tucked her feet under the covers and pulled the blankets up to her chin. Her chest heaved as one of the nurses entered the room with a tray. 

It was Katrina, one of the nurses who cared for Anya most often. 

“Anya,” Katrina began as she gripped Anya’s dinner tray.

Anya peeked at her from under her blanket. She held her breath to stop her heart from racing. 

Katrina clicked her tongue, “I told you limited time out of bed.”

Anya folded her blanket down with a dramatic sigh. “Why couldn’t that count as limited time?” She asked. “I just wanted to look at the scar on my head.”

“It will heal with time,” Katrina reassured her. “And it would do you good to keep your nose out of places it doesn’t belong.”

“I can’t walk across the room?” Anya tried to reason with her. 

“On occasion,” Katrina replied as she set down a tray with Anya’s meal. 

Anya reached over and grabbed a roll and started to tear it apart. She quickly stuck a piece in her mouth and began to chew. 

Katrina smiled. Since Anya had come to the hospital, she had never had any concern about her appetite. She often snuck Anya a couple extra servings to combat her malnourishment. 

Anya picked up her fork and began to eat. 

“The doctor is going to do a check up with you next week, and if all seems to be healing well, we thought you might like to help with folding linens.”

Anya’s eyes lit up. She was growing restless in a room on her own and had begged the nurses to let her make use of herself by helping with small tasks around the hospital. 

“Will I get to wear a uniform?” Anya asked. 

“Perhaps a uniform would be in order,” Katrina laughed. 

“This nightgown is very nice but I don’t think it would be easy to work in,” Anya mused. 

Katrina smiled as she listened to Anya. She had grown fond of Anya in her recovery, and her heart ached as she listened to the words that spilled from Anya’s lips. Anya was sweet but honest when she needed to be, and Katrina had grown to care for her as if she were a child of her own. 

Katrina didn’t know how someone could be so horrible to such a kind young girl. She watched Anya as she ate her meal, unsuspecting.

“I think my hair is just long enough to pin like yours,” Anya beamed. “Will you show me how you do yours?” 

“Take a breath, child,” Katrina leaned over Anya’s plate and ran her thumb over Anya’s cheek. She tilted Anya’s chin up to look at her. 

Anya stared back at her with brilliant blue eyes. 

“Once the doctor sees you, then we’ll discuss what you can help with,” Katrina said softly. “Finish this plate please, I don’t want to see a scrap going back to the kitchen.”

Anya nodded. 

Katrina took a seat on the foot of Anya’s bed to keep her company while she ate. Anya’s head was healing nicely, but Katrina worried about keeping her alone in a room by herself. While she could easily heal Anya’s physical wounds, she wanted to be sure to care for the emotional ones too. Anya was a bright young woman, and the best Katrina could do was talk to her and offer companionship while she healed. 

Anya ate quickly and cleaned her plate, as she often did.

Katrina collected her tray and handed her a glass of water. “Drink that slowly.”

Anya stared at her as she used both hands to drink from the glass. 

Katrina arched her brow as she watched her. “Don’t call me if you have a stomach ache from eating too fast,” Katrina clicked her tongue. 

Anya’s shoulders dropped and she paused. Her hair fell in her face as she sat up straighter and she blew it out of her face. 

Katrina laughed and tilted Anya’s chin up. She examined her eye movement as Anya watched her closely. 

“I’ll come say goodnight before bed,” Katrina said softly. “I don’t want you getting out of bed any more tonight.”

Anya crossed her arms and scoweled like a child. “What about when I work changing linens?”

“We’ll talk about it then,” Katrina reminded her. She took Anya’s hand and gave it a squeeze and grabbed Anya’s book from her side table and set it in her lap. “Not too long, you need to rest.”

Anya nodded obediently. 

“I’ll be back,” Katrina promised. 

She nodded again, but her heart still sank. Anya had seen other patients receiving callings and visitors and she wondered if no one loved her enough to go searching for her in the hospitals. 

She didn’t have any idea who would come, but it always felt a little empty to watch other visitors while she was alone, sanctioned off in a room by herself. 

It gave her a lot of time to think and build her own independence. She had to occupy her mind between visits from the nurses and was grateful for any small task to distract her. 

The nurses had said with time, she could help around the hospital, if she had no where else to go. It was strange, for the first time, Anya wasn’t in a rush to anywhere in particular. She didn’t know where she would go if she could go anywhere.

* * *

**[Odessa, 1922]**

Anya thumbed through her wages and let out a sigh. It was decent work, she told herself. It was enough to keep her insides from eating away at her. She shoved the notes into her pocket and smoothed her skirt. 

Anya shook her apron out and tied it around her waist. She had taken a job washing dishes at a small inn in Odessa. It wasn’t her original plan, and the wages were low, but she was grateful for honest work. 

In a place turning on the other side of famine, there were plenty who had it worse than her. She might have no memory of her past, but she had a job that paid and a place she had found to sleep. It was no fairytale life, but she couldn’t complain. 

Anya had heard whispering a that anyone who took the job was a fool, but she didn’t see it that way. It made her feel useful and like she had a place in a society that had welcomed her in from her harsh travels. And that was all the officers told the citizens they should be grateful for, right?

Anya grew restless at the hospital and though she dearly loved the nurses at the hospital, her heart ached for something larger. She had dreamed of Paris and more often her curiosity ate away at her more than her hunger. She had convinced herself someone was waiting for her in Paris, she just wasn’t sure who or why.

On a grueling trek, she made it to Odessa in hopes of getting a boat to Paris, but Quickly encountered the hurdle of travel papers and needing a ticket to board a boat. Anya bit her lip and told herself this was a minor setback. It was a mere detour until she could acquire the items she needed for passage into Paris. 

Odessa was temporary, but fine, all she needed was wages for bread and to save a portion of her wages for travel papers and a boat ticket. Until then, she watched, waiting for the day she could start the life that was waiting for her somewhere far away. 

When she asked a man for assistance for travel papers he told her she was out of her mind. 

When she explained her plan to a woman in the marketplace, she called her crazy. 

Crazy had been a word Anya had heard tossed around quite freely over the last five years. It was discouraging to hear, but Anya knew she wasn’t crazy. It was only dangerous to dream here. 

She learned to keep her lips tight, and only said what she needed to say. 

Anya stepped into the kitchen of the inn and set to work. 

She ran her fingers through her hair, feeling over the faint scar in her hairline. It reminded her to be grateful, and not to underestimate the kindness of strangers. Her lip turned into a soft smile.

The work at the inn was considered lowly, but the rest of the crew didn’t appreciate the view out the kitchen window. Anya loved that from the window a dock was in sight, like a beacon of hope. 

Her hands were rough from washing and she was often exhausted and overworked, but that view made it worth it. She remained hopeful that Paris was only a boat ride away. 

Anya leaned over the sink and scrubbed an oversized pot. Resting in the sink, the pot was nearly up to her chin, and she had to stand on her toes to reach down into the pot to scrub. While trying to negotiate with the pot, a strand of her hair fell into her eyes as she leaned over the pot. She let out a groan. 

She brushed the hair out of her face with her forearm, her hands dripping wet with soapy water. She didn’t want to touch her hair and get it wet, but it was becoming increasingly apparent she was going to have to do so. 

Anya quickly tucked the strand behind her ear and finished her dishes. Her shoulder dropped with a heavy sigh. She dried her hands on her apron and untied it. Her hair still pestering her tucked behind her ear.

She ran her fingers over the place where she once had a rough scar. Anya was used to eyes fixating on her brilliant eyes first and then tracing up to the scar on her head. As unique as it made her, it was also dangerous, and these days her only goal was to survive. 

She pulled her hair over the section to cover it and braided it back to keep it out of her eyes. She wasn’t concealing it in shame, but it raised less suspicion that way, and managed to keep her hair out of her eyes. 

Anya caught a glimpse of herself with her hair braided and a soft smile pulled at her lip. The braid felt right. It was a sign she might actually be growing into who she was.

There were many things Anya wasn’t sure about these days, one of them being if she even liked the name Anya, but she couldn’t let these thoughts bother her. Word had come down from Moscow that conditions were growing worse and borders were starting to close, and she wondered if there really was a life beyond the harsh terrain of Russia for her. 

She made a promise to herself as soon as she had saved up enough wages she would pay for a one way ticket out of Odessa. 

“Anya, shut the door when you’re finished,” a man barked. 

She snapped back. She nodded obediently and folded her apron. 

Before she left for the night, she stole a glance out the window at the dock once more and imagined what it would be like to travel on one of those boats, leaving Odessa behind forever.

* * *

**[St. Petersburg, 1927]**

“We have only just begun,” Dmitry muttered as he snapped his book shut. With a groan he pulled himself off the chaise in the abandoned palace and straightened himself out.

Anya carefully eyed him as he smoothed his vest and tucked his history book in his arm. This seemed to be Dmitry’s way of announcing he was going to bed.

She tossed her hair over her shoulder in response to let him know she was indifferent. He had been rude to her all evening, not taking into account it was easy for him to tell her what to remember but hard for her to remember an entire lifetime she had no recollection of in just a few weeks. 

Dmitry and Vlad walked around the abandoned theatre and extinguished the oil lamps, leaving one glowing by Anya. Dmitry headed down the hall to the place they had claimed to sleep in the palace. 

Anya watched them disappear and turned to look out the elongated windows of the palace. Moonlight cascaded through the window and illuminated the room. 

She leaned over her book and continued to read. Her hair spilled over her shoulder and fell into her book as she tilted her head and she pushed it out of her line of vision. She was still irritated with Dmitry and it was pouring into frustration with herself.

Her hair had grown long with time and patience, and it nearly reached her waist. She knew, even during her days at the hospital, she needed to be patient. She would feel more like herself with time. She just wasn’t quite sure when that time would be. 

When she Had first looked in a dusty mirror in the abandoned palace, Dmitry eagerly gripping her shoulders as he looked at her, she looked more like her old self, but she didn’t feel like herself. There were still many things about her past and St. Petersburg she was uncertain about. Dmitry being one of them.

Over time, Anya had learned she could only truly trust herself. If she was going to learn Anastasia’s past, she couldn’t do it for Dmitry, she had to do it for herself. The only way she was going to find out if this was the answer she was searching for was if she resigned to learning to do this for herself. She wanted to know her history, her family, her past, and if someone once loved her.

Nearly an hour passed and Anya has made a significant dent in the book Dmitry had pulled from the shelf in the library. Her eyelids were heavy and she was fighting to stay awake. She extinguished the last lamp and gathered her belongings to go to bed. 

Since she had arrived in Petersburg, Anya had become increasingly independent. It was hard to walk back on that and learn to work in a team with Dmitry and Vlad. It wasn’t without conflict. 

She retired to the room they often slept in and found an old blanket neatly folded by her place in the room. Anya turned over her shoulder to glance at Dmitry. It would be quite out of character for a man who refused to give her so much as a glass of water to leave her a wool blanket to sleep with. 

Dmitry was curled up with a blanket of his own. His back rose and fell In his slumber. 

She turned and looked at Vlad where he was stretched out on an old chaise, deep in sleep. As she settled down, Anya pulled her fingers through her braided hair and unraveled the braid. She scrunched her nose as she used her fingers to brush her hair out. 

The room was still between them and Anya tried her best to keep her movements small and quiet. She turned to look at Dmitry before settling down to go to sleep. 

Her brow softened. Dmitry groaned and rolled over in his sleep. He was much less menacing in his sleep. His hair was mussed as he rested his head on his arm, and his brow that was often tied up in a scowl was soft. 

Anya tossed her hair over her shoulder as she turned her back to him and settled down to sleep.

For the first time she thought of the three of them as individuals who all were in this business deal for their own self gain, but it was humbling that they were forced to work together. 

Dmitry couldn’t complete his deal without Anya. Anya couldn’t be Anastasia without Vlad. Vlad wouldn’t be returning to Paris without Dmitry. They were a team, and this was the closest Anya had ever felt to having a family she could call her own.

* * *

**[Paris, 1927]**

Anya held hair pins in her mouth as she twisted her hair up and pinned it. Dmitry was in the middle of tearing the suite apart, looking for a cufflink he had misplaced the night before. Her pursed lips curled into a smile as she watched him pace around the room and toss a decorative pillow to the side in a short-tempered fit. 

He muttered something to himself and Anya pressed the pins in her mouth to keep herself from laughing. 

“Is this what you were looking for, my boy?” Vlad offered as he returned to the room.

Dmitry paused and turned back to look at him. 

Anya’s eyes returned to her reflection as she struggled with a piece of her hair in the back. The woman who had styled her hair when they had arrived in Paris made it look so easy. Or perhaps, the pressure to get it right to look presentable for the Dowager Empress was making it harder. 

Dmitry stared at the silver cufflink Vlad held between his fingers. “Where was that?” He asked. 

“On the side table,” Vlad gestured to the room he and Dmitry were sharing. 

Dmitry’s ears turned red and he took the cufflink from Vlad with a quiet thank you. 

Anya hid her smile as she pinned sections of her hair up. She tilted her chin forward and kept her eyes on the mirror as she rolled a curl and pinned it into place. By the time she got to the last section of her hair she was well practiced in smoothing, rolling, pinning and spraying hair into place. It seemed silly to put so much time into her hair, but she wanted to feel like she belonged with the rest of the Parisian women. 

As Anya fixed the last pin into place, she tilted her chin up to look at her reflection. She looked older and more mature. The young childish face of a street urchin of St. Petersburg was gone and replaced with a woman of high society. 

She used her fingers to fix a few pieces of hair to get it to look just the way she wanted. It was odd to have her hair up and off her shoulders. Her neck was exposed, much the same way she would be baring her soul to the Dowager Empress of Russia in a few hours. 

Her eyes flicked to Dmitry in the reflection of the mirror. Anya had never seen Dmitry so disoriented, and though her own stomach turned beneath the blue satin that was far finer than anything she had ever worn, she wondered if his nerves were getting to him. She wondered if he was nervous if the Dowager Empress would turn them away, and this was all for nothing. She wondered if he was worried he would lose her. Selfishly, she wanted him to. 

Anya had never had quite the right words to thank Dmitry. Every time she had tried she had choked on her own words and spoken to him like a business partner, rather than a friend. Her pride caught her words. She wanted to think it was her own free will and quick thinking that had gotten them here. 

But she knew it wasn’t all her. It was Dmitry’s persistence and attention to detail that had extended her efforts. 

Dmitry pinned his cuff and muttered something about going down to the lobby. He quietly slipped out of the room, and Anya watched the door shut behind him in the mirror. He was under no obligation to accompany her tonight—that was never part of the deal. Her hands shook as she fixed a silver embellishment into her hair. She turned her head to look at the way it sparkled in her hair.

She could admire the finery, but it didn’t stop her stomach from turning with nerves. 

Anya wrung her hands and Vlad came to her side. He wrapped an arm around her as he looked at her in the reflection of the mirror. 

“You’re going to be extraordinary,” he whispered and pressed a kiss to her temple. 

Anya closed her eyes and smiled. Vlad gave her a quick squeeze and Anya’s eyes dropped to her hands as she twisted her gloves. 

Vlad left the room and headed down to the lobby, leaving Anya alone. She stared back at her reflection, the woman staring back at her a shadow of the woman she knew in her heart. 

She barely recognized herself, her hair up and off her shoulders, jewels and satin draping over her figure, heels pinching her toes. It all felt like something she might wear in another lifetime, but not this one. 

Anya carefully applied her lipstick and took one last look at herself in the mirror. She grabbed her clutch and started down to the lobby to meet Vlad and Dmitry.

Tonight her only job was to successfully appeal to the Dowager Empress as the Grand Duchess Anastasia. 

* * *

Anya stared at herself in the vanity mirror of their hotel room. Her hair was pinned up and her face was painted in a way that was nearly unrecognizable to her. She pulled her ruby earrings off and set them on the dressing table. Removing the crown and ball gown had the same bittersweet feeling of closing the back cover of a fairytale book. 

She stared at the earrings for a moment as she stood in her slip and stockings. Her lip turned into a smile as she thought of the quiet tears of joy in her grandmother's eyes as she pulled the earrings from her jewelry box. 

Anya took a towel and wiped the lipstick from her lips. It was like erasing the memory her chest had ached for. Anya glanced back in the mirror as she wiped the rest of her makeup off. 

She reached behind her head to start on the tedious task of taking her hair down. As beautiful as her thick, golden hair looked pinned up in the latest fashion in Paris, it also felt least like her. Her fingers fixed on a pin and were met by another set of hands. Her eyes flicked up to the mirror and she saw Dmitry standing behind her in the reflection.

He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. 

Anya’s hands dropped to her sides as she turned to look at him. 

His eyes were tired and his hair messy, likely from running his fingers through it in his own distress, but he had a victorious grin wiped across his face. 

She smiled at him, and reached up to caress his cheek, her thumb pausing on the dimple in his cheek. His cheek tightened with a smile and he met her hand with his own and brought hers down to her side. 

Ever so gently, he tilted her head forward. His brow knit and he carefully found and removed the pins in her hair. He collected the pins in his hand and when he had too many he set them on the vanity. 

Anya stood still as he released each section, a golden curl tumbling down her back as he pulled each pin. Dmitry had somewhat of a reputation of being a roughneck, but as Anya had learned he was quite precise and nimble when it came to details. Dmitry pulled the last hair pin and glanced over her head. He ran his fingers through her hair, searching for any missed pins.

His fingers paused in her hair as if he was taking in that she was real and she was here with him. His fingers freely brushed through her curls, something he had likely longed to do for some time. He pulled his fingers through a tangle in the end of her hair, and dropped his hands back to his sides. 

Anya gently reached behind her head to feel through her hair. She ran her fingers through her hair to check for any missed hair pins. Her lip curled into a soft smile. A perfect run on his first try. 

Dmitry returned her smile and she felt his hand brush her shoulder. Anya turned to look at him. His hand ran over her shoulder as he stayed behind her. He gathered her hair off her neck and gently ran his fingers through the tangled ends. 

Anya watched him in the reflection of the mirror and her heart jumped to her throat. 

He gently twirled and draped her hair over her shoulder, ever so gently moving it out of the way as he nestled his nose into her neck. 

Anya exhaled and traced her hand up to cradle his cheek. He pressed a kiss to her neck and she smiled. 

His hand snaked around her waist with the intention of casual intimacy she had longed for her entire life. How lucky she had been to find Dmitry. 

Anya ran her fingers through the ends of her hair where it was settled over her shoulder. She felt Dmitry rest his chin on her shoulder and she laughed at the way his stature hunched to meet her height. It had been a long night, and her body ached with exhaustion.

She could have easily taken her hair down herself, but he wanted to do it for her. He could have easily kissed her exposed neck while her hair was up, but had decided to make her more comfortable by taking it down before tenderly kissing her. 

Dmitry’s hand followed the curve of her waist As he straightened his shoulders and he left her alone with her reflection. 

Anya twisted her hair over her shoulder and reached out to him to catch his hand. Dmitry’s breath hitched and he turned back to look at her. She pulled him back in and he shook his head as he wrapped his arms around her waist and gave her an exhausted smile. He nestled his nose into her neck, consumed by too much excitement in one day.

Anya reached up and cupped his cheek. For once he was right where she wanted him, right where they both belonged. 

From the months she had spent with Dmitry she had learned the hardest lesson—she was fully capable of surviving on her own, but she preferred live her life with him. 

**Author's Note:**

> As this fic rounds out my writing for 2020, I want to extend my most sincere thank you to anyone who has read this far. It’s been a year unlike any other, and I’ve have many more hours to sit inside and write than ever before, and I hope it’s been as enjoyable to read as it’s been to write. 
> 
> With that, this will likely be my last update for some time, and I want to extend my gratitude for being able to share this with you. Wishing you all the best in 2021, with much love! :)


End file.
